Madhya Pradesh - Glorious past, optimistic present

Madhya Pradesh is one of the less fancied teams currently in the Ranji Trophy. This statement might be a bit of a misnomer considering the glorious history of the cricket team. When one compares the past, the present scenario is a sad one for the fans of Madhya Pradesh cricket. Back in the early 40's, Madhya Pradesh competed as the Holkar Cricket team. It entered the Ranji Trophy competition in 1941 and it proved to be top notch.

The golden decade was from the period of 1944 till 1954. Holkar reached the final in 1944 before losing out to Bombay. However, in the very next season, the team tasted glory as they defeated Baroda to win their first Ranji Trophy. The good form continued throughout the later part of the decade as the team defeated Bombay in the 1947-48 season. The results continued to go their way in the first half of the 50's when they defeated Gujarat in 1950-51 as well as Bengal in 1952-53. During this decade, they reached the final six times, losing out to Bombay on three occasions and to Baroda twice. Holkar was finally dissolved as a team in 1954 during the re-organization of the Indian states and it became part of the Madhya Bharat team which later became Madhya Pradesh in 1956.

Holkar has produced several top notch players. Col. CK Nayudu was the most legendary figure to emerge out of this team. Chandu Sarwate played a significant role during India's tour to England in 1946. He was involved in a record 10th wicket stand of 235 with Shute Banerjee and he picked up 5/54 to give India a fabulous win over Surrey. Syed Mushtaq Ali has the distinction of being the first Indian to score a Test century overseas when India played against England in Manchester in 1936. To honour his achievements, a domestic cup is named after him.

Following the creation of the Madhya Pradesh team, the fortunes dipped steadily. Although the team consisted of top-class bowlers like Narendra Hirwani and Rajesh Chauhan, they could not achieve much success. After a barren run of four decades, the team had a chance for glory when they took on Karnataka in the final at the Chinnaswamy stadium in 1999. Having dismissed Karnataka for 304 thanks to a fine spell by Harvinder Sodhi who picked up 5/78, Madhya Pradesh took a lead of 75 runs thanks to a gritty 130 from Santosh Kumar Sahu. Jagadeesh Arunkumar played a fantastic rearguard knock of 147 to help Karnataka reach 321, setting MP a target of 245. However, MP lost their nerve when an unlikely hero in the form of Vijay Bharadwaj picked up 6/24 to scuttle them out for 150, giving Karnataka a 96 run win and also the Ranji Trophy. It was heart-break for former India wicket-keeper Chandrakant Pandit who had led the team admirably.

The 1999 season saw the emergence of Devendra Bundela, who is the current skipper of the team. He scored 955 runs at an average of 79.58. He continues to be the pillar of the MP team and a lot will hinge on him.

With the start of the 2012-13 Ranji season, there is a lot of optimism in the camp. The average age of the team is 23.8 which is the youngest when compared to the top teams in this competition. Naman Ojha is the big name and he will hold the key to the batting. The team also has the services of Jalaj Saxena who picked up 5/62 in a losing cause in the Duleep Trophy final for Central Zone against East Zone.

Saxena has had a fine year so far. In a telephonic chat with cricbuzz.com, he stated that he is confident that Madhya Pradesh will do well this season. "We have a lot of young guys this time. The team did well last year in the domestic T20 and ODIs. The aim now will be to take one match at a time and perform well."

When inquired about the lack of big names in the MP team, Jalaj stated that, "Big names do not make much of a difference in this competition. The success of Rajasthan and Jharkhand, teams which lacked big name players, shows that a combined team effort can yield results."

With the presence of teams like Mumbai, Rajasthan, Bengal and Hyderabad in their group, it will be tough for Madhya Pradesh to reach the quarter-finals but they have the potential to cause some upsets along the way.

With renewed optimism and a fresh beginning, Madhya Pradesh will be banking on youth power to bring a turn-around in their Ranji fortunes. The heart of Incredible India will be fulfilled if this team wins. All MP cricket fans can then have the license to sing the famous tourism song, 'MP ajab hain, sabse ghazab hain' (MP is incredible, it is really fantastic).

The Ranji trophy 2012/13 was eventually won by the Indian domestic giants - Mumbai - for the 40th time in the tournament's history, but it was a season to remember for two other teams - Services and Saurashtra.